Delictorum Confessio Poem by Niko Tiliopoulos

Your house is old,
as old as the stones that built it,
those that reflect in the silence of the night
the sins and the pain that for centuries have absorbed.

During those hours you stand on your balcony and smile at me,
with an Arabian Nights’ irony,
as you watch me observe your nightdress caressing the marbles,
weaving songs to wipe the sweat off our eyes,
as the moon sends them images from past times.

Every night...
Forever...
I will be there,
inside your atavistic depths,
for you...

For you I betrayed my Lord,
with a kiss, three nails
and a noose around my neck.

For you I was drown in the ammonia of the urine
of the barbarians that stoned Stephan,
and was left to be lynched by the mob
when I assassinated the Mahatma.

For you the minstrels sang my adventures,
in the mud-villages of the meleagrides of the Province,
in the pitiful theatres of the moulded lepers.

For you I was tortured by Torquemada in Avila,
as I revealed to him my secret,
the one that for centuries Alighieri
was hiding inside la commedia of his divine imagination.

For you I tried to convince Amr Ibn el-As
not to burn the Great Library,
on the night of the new moon of Muharram,
then when Hijra was becoming twenty years old.

For you lady of the glens
I searched for the Grail, the Holy,
Arthur’s curse,
by following the wrinkled shadows
of the thunder-built walls of the palaces of Valhalla.

For you I loved you,
from the very first moment we were separated,
then, when we still were expressionless,
living in other spheres of existence...

But...
your house will always be old,
and I will be there every night,
between the leaves,
dreaming,
with your songs,
of you...

Lorelei...
Siren...
daughter of the Devas...
seducer of my soul...
concubine of my sensations...

...

don’t cry...